IUK: It suits Bin Laden if we call him the head of World Terror I nc By Robert Fisk29/9/2001 4:38 am Sat

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=95878

It suits Bin Laden if we call him the head of World Terror Inc

By Robert Fisk

25 September 2001

They make alliances, the men who are clandestinely trying to
change the Middle East. They break the rules of every intelligence
agency, outfox the CIA and Mossad; they are the nightmare of
every security man and every sub-editor. They lie about the
extent of their power every bit as much as the spooks lie about
them. Osama bin Laden is no different. He admits he knows two of
three men executed by the Saudis for bombing an American
military base in Al-Khobar; but he insists they were not working for
him. He acknowledges his men fought American troops in Somalia;
but he says they were not doing this on his behalf.

And those who wish to turn Mr bin Laden into the head of "World
Terror Inc" will gift him with superhuman qualities - much to his
delight. The lonely man on the Afghan mountain-top four years
ago, who grabbed my Arabic newspapers to read of events he
should have known all about, must have been flattered when, six
months later, the Americans claimed he was the mastermind of
"international terror". He needed the title, even if he didn't deserve
it.

Because the bin Ladens of this world - and the intelligence
agencies - feed on each other. The head of "Islamic Jihad" once
told me that William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, who
died - or was tortured to death after his abduction - had been
drawing up lists of Muslims to be liquidated by the Lebanese
authorities. The same kidnapper is now named by Israeli
intelligence as a bin Laden contact in Beirut. Both claims are
almost certainly untrue. But it serves the interests of both to believe
it.

On Monday, the former head of Canada's Security Intelligence
Service said the country was "riddled with terrorists" - 350 from 50
separate groups, he declared. But this is preposterous. Although
an Algerian would-be bomber made his way across the border to
the US - and may have been a bin Laden man - it would be
difficult to name more than a handful of such groups in the Middle
East, let alone 50 in Canada alone.

"Even if the US were to cease to exist tomorrow," ex-spook David
Harris informed the world, "we [in Canada] are riddled with
homicidal maniacs." Poor old Canada. Even the Israelis don't go
quite that far in paranoia.

What is clear is that Arabs who fought the Russians in Afghanistan
- either under Mr bin Laden or pro-American guerrilla leaders -
have played a leading part in the continuation of a war against the
West or pro-Western regimes in the Middle East. There is, for
example, no evidence of a bin Laden link with the Algerian
Islamists who, along with the army, have taken the lives of 120,000
people in Algeria. But the Pakistan embassy in Algiers has lists of
thousands of Algerians who acquired visas in the 1980s to travel
to Peshawar en route to Afghanistan.

Egyptian security officers investigating the massacre of foreign
tourists at Luxor concluded that Mr bin Laden - though he may
have been known to the killers by name - played no role in the
massacre. But every "security agency" now lists the Luxor
bloodbath as Mr bin Laden's work. Mr bin Laden hates Saddam
Hussein, regarding the Iraqi leader as a Western-created dictator
- a not entirely inaccurate description - but he is already being
accused of acting hand-in-hand with the "Beast of Baghdad".

Mr bin Laden has little time for Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, yet he is
supposed to have cooperated with Libyan intelligence. The Abu
Sayaf group in Indonesia - a Ghaddafi creation - contains men
who fought in Afghanistan, but Mr bin Laden is unlikely to have
allied himself with the man whom President Reagan once
described as "flakey". Repeatedly, the discovery that Arabs
accused of bombings or murders fought in Afghanistan has been
regarded as proof that they work for Mr bin Laden. But most of the
thousands of foreigners who made their pilgrimage to Afghanistan
to fight the Russians were encouraged to do so by the CIA, not Mr
bin Laden.

This does not clear the Saudi dissident. His links to the bombing of
the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam appear to
be solid. His connections with the Pakistani "jihadis" are a matter
of pride to him. The German "connection" - the joint collegiate life
of so many of the hijackers who took over the American airliners
on 11 September - grows stronger every day.

So does the connection with Saudi Arabia, his own country. One
reason why the Saudis refused to allow the FBI permission to
cross-question the men accused of bombing the US base at
al-Khobar - is said to be their embarrassment at discovering how
deeply Mr bin Laden has penetrated Saudi society, not least the
royal family.

All in all, then, it may be better to hear the evidence in court when
Mr bin Laden is brought to trial; unless, of course, the Americans
do not plan to give him a trial - in which case the "evidence" is
being rehearsed prior to his execution.